Farmers' protest: Sanyukt Kisan Morcha claims preventive detentions of farm leaders

ADG DK Thakur denies any detention but admits that farmer leaders were approached and persuaded not to join march

MEERUT: The ‘Delhi March’ of farmers from Haryana and Punjab has begun to have an impact on farmers’ organisations in western Uttar Pradesh, an agricultural belt of the state.

For representation (Sourced)

Police and administration have approached farmer leaders in different districts of the Meerut zone, urging them not to participate in the farmers’ protest. However, veteran farmer leader and BKU (Asli) chief Harpal Singh Bilari, who is also associated with Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (non-political), claimed that police had made preventive detentions of many farmer leaders in Hapur, Bulandshahar, Sambhal, Amroha, and other districts to stop them to join the march.

While announcing that he, along with other farmers, would march to Delhi in the coming days, he said, “We are living in a democratic country and have all the rights to raise our voice for our genuine demands,” and accused the union government of cheating on the issue of guaranteeing MSP.

ADG (Meerut zone) DK Thakur denied any preventive detention and said that farmer leaders who were believed to join the protest were approached in different districts and persuaded not to go to Delhi. The ADG also denied deploying additional forces in the zone in the wake of the farmers’ protest and said, “The zone has received additional companies of PAC, but they have not been deployed yet.”

Meanwhile, police officials, requesting anonymity, admitted that 30 to 40 farmer leaders in Bulandshahr were approached and persuaded not to participate in any kind of march. The officials also briefed farmer leaders that it would not be advisable for them to join the march as heavy barricading has been placed at the Ghazipur border to prevent the entry of farmers. National organisational secretary of BKU( Tikait), Surendra Singh claimed that different organisations of farmers in western UP are discussing the ways and means to support the protest and movement of farmers. “It will be clear in a day or two that how these we will proceed to support the protest,” he said.

Thousands of farmers, along with their tractors, have started their march to Delhi from Punjab to push their demands. The SKM (non-political) and a few other organisations of farmers and labourers are leading the protestors who had a confrontation with police at Shambhu border on the Delhi-Amritsar Highway on Tuesday afternoon.

Reacting on farmers protest BKU leader Rakesh Tikait said that farmers are fighting for their genuine demands including guarantee of MSP and government should resolve the issue with dialogues instead of creating confrontation.